Large Hadron Timewaster

Is it run by plumbers?

I'm waiting for the "You bought one of these mate? I doubt I can get the parts these days. Tell you what, why don't I install a new one for you? I've got one in the back of my van which can be yours for £8bn. Cash only, mind"

Wrong side of the smasher this morning?

Blimey - that's a bit overwhelmingly negative, isn't it? Surely we're better spending the money on this - something that *could* reveal something genuinely interesting about the world we find ourselves in - rather than say... ooh... biometric ID cards?

What?

Why don't you just fuck off and live in a cave, with no computer and no electricity, not wear any synthetic fibres, not use any medicines and shit in a hole in the ground?

If you're prepared to put up with the benefits of Science, you can put up with the costs. £4 billion is peanuts compared to what the USA spends on [insert frivolous crap here] each year

FAIL

"It seems that, like fractals, which are infinitely complex at whatever scale they are examined, there will always be smaller bits of atoms inside the current smallest bits you are looking at. All you need is an ever-bigger hammer to deconstruct them and the LHS is just a waystation on the path to the ELHC (Even Larger Hadron Collider)."

That's what happens when you have pundits who should first consult a physics manual before pulling out an article about "waste" out of their nether regions. Planck length. Look it up.

And of course there will never be a larger hadron collider. Because you want to get clean collisions when going to higher energies, so back to leptons it will be.

So nothing negative in this report at all?

Journalism, while not the most reliable sources of news, should at least have the semblance of unbiased fact rather than a personal vendetta.

Chris, it is plainly obvious that you have nothing but disdain for what potentially could be the most important event in Human history.

I'm not denying that it could also possibly be nothing more than a very expensive failed experiment, but without such things, advances cannot happen.

So rather than calling it a 'timewaster'. why not try objective journalistic reporting. It might even make you a happier person.

Oh sure

Oh sure, the LHC may help physicist gain a greater understanding of this magnificent and massively complex system, we call the universe. Sure they may even discover some answers to the fundamental questions; when? where? how? (and possibly even) why? Sure, such deep curiosity is probably the greatest thing we humans can claim as truly _ours_; extension of natural mammal inquisitiveness it may be, we've managed to make it an art. But...

Will it help me pay for my fuel bills, rent, grumble-mag subscription fees, pop-tarts etc?

Sigh... time to get back to work, huddled over my desk, bashing the keys with my palms. Look how far we've come.

missing something here...

LHC... isn't that at CERN?

And didn't they invent the web?

As a BYPRODUCT of their core research?

But you're probably right. Money down the drain.

Idiot.

I wonder what you would be saying

if they wanted to spend billions on studying NOTHING. Vacuum is very interesting if you know how to look at it closely. I would back such schemes, but then I never had much truck with beancounter attitudes.

Anyway, it beats spending money on Euro/Joint Strike/Insert favourite here/ fighters or aircraft carriers that do not seem to be fit for the wars we fight now (that should get people going).

Was this article written by Quentin Crisp?

Apparently he said "if at first you don't succeed, failure may be your style".

Why is this author posing, er, posting in Physics??

If an "author" can't even describe a hadron as anything other than "bits of atoms", then perhaps his/her grasp of the physics at stake really isn't compelling enough to be a source of public record - or even an informed opinion shouted from an electronic soapbox.

For the record, we need the LHC because we KNOW that our best current theories of quantum physics are at least a leeeetle wrong, and/or a leeeetle incomplete. Sure would be nice to actually FIND evidence of a Higgs bosun to explain where mass comes from, rather than just postulating it and hoping the maths work (they do SO far...). The US Superconducting Supercollider would have settled things even better, but given it's departure from this universe (funding-wise), the LHC is the closest we are going to get to enough energies to fill in some gaps we have in our quantum physical models, and make any corrections needed. And explain dark matter, dark energy, quark interactions at a distance, and a perhaps a host of other things that are currently bothering us that don't really make a lot of sense or can't be proven.

Perhaps more important, considering the WWW itself is an offshoot of CERN technology development, having El Reg criticize the cost of it's development is rather funny...without the WWW, most of your authors would be waiting tables or actually having to write code or something tedious...

Hmm

A dig at physics research spending on an IT site?

You're preaching to the wrong crowd, mate. Try the Daily Fail.

Science? Progress?

Why bother? Sounds expensive, and it might take a few months longer than pen-pushers and bean-counters feel is 'reasonable'.

Wait a sec, I'll come back to this later once I have lit a fire - it's cold here and all I have to light it are two rocks to bash together.

/sigh

Poor.

The culture of aggressive ignorance.

>"Physicists say they are on a noble quest to understand the fundamental structure of matter - but does it matter?"

Yes, it does, you ignorant barbarian. And it will undoubtedly lead to practical applications as a spinoff down the line. Case in point: our entire fucking industry exists because of the theoretical research done into quantum mechanics by the guys with the first generation of cyclotrons. So yes it pays your bleedin' bills, even if that's the limit of your short-sighted horizon owing to your utter lack of aspiration for the higher achievements of which humanity is capable.

Just because you don't understand something doesn't make it worthless. You're showing the same attitude of wilful anti-intellectual know-nothingism as the creationists and fundies and other anti-science zealots, and psychologically it's nothing more than your own inferiority complex writ large: you don't understand it, can't see what it's for, yet you are unable to admit that this is merely a consequence of your own ignorance of what is after all a highly technical subject, preferring to believe that instead it must be worthless because you do not even acknowledge the possibility of there being things beyond your understanding. Well, you're just going to have to grow up and face the facts: you don't know everything, some people know more than you about some things, and you don't have any "right" to automatically be correct in your every whimsical and uninformed opinion.

Oh dear...

Why such a negative article in a website dedicated to science and technology? This feels like it's been lifted out an ignoramous paper like the Sun or Daily Sport...

The LHC will bring us that much closer to understanding the 80-90% of the universe we appear to be missing. I think that's worth more than the NPfIT, don't you?

Also - I would like the editorial team to seriously consider this reporters position and his suitability for the job as it appears to me to be terrible.

Does it matter?

No, of course not. Let's just all give up on science because, obviously, playing video games or surfing the web is just more fun and important than learning stuff about how the world works.

BE thankful

It was at CERN that the WWW was created - that medium that you are using now to spread your own personal vendetta.

Faraday asked "What use is an unborn child?" This research has no immediate use. It's what it may grow into that is excitiing. Maybe a way of cold fusion? Maybe showing how to make submoleculer structures to store higher data densities? Perhaps a tigher noninvasive imaging beam or maybe advanced radiotherpy beams.

Who knows. You certainly don't and neither do the scientists doing the research but that's *why*.

Flammable symbol because there isnt an acid one for your vitriol.

>Think of it as an employment scheme

Actually it's more a money laundering scheme.

Your country gets contracts pro-rated on your contribution. But there are only a few companies able to actually build this kit, so BAe bid for the UK's portion of the magnets - sub contract the job while keeping a percentage.

Some proprtion of the money actually gets spent on research but most of it is back-handers to the biggest employers in each country's marginal constituencies. Still it's cheaper than building eurofighters.

Exactly what are the news?

To summarize article facts:

1- LHC is delayed

2- LHC costs a lot of money

3- We don't know if LHC will provide any results useful in real life.

Exactly what is the difference between the LHC and other science projects? Perhaps is that it's finances are open and inspectable? Apart from the author obvious traumas related to things that collision at high speed when spinned in a large circular tunnel, I cannot see any difference.

The key point to remember is that most of those huge projects have perhaps not ever derived any direct benefits by themselves, but the technologies developed for them often have. Does anyone have a single example of a direct benefit of having a man put its feet on the moon? Noone. Right, but the technologies developed for achieving that stupid goal changed our lives a great deal. LHC is in the same category.

It's all the BBC's fault

If they hadn't spent a month trying to convince the world that the start date was last summer, no-one would be surprised or particularly concerned that a twenty year project has slipped a few months.

Oh, and Faraday was once asked what was the value of his research into electricity and magnetism. He replied, "Who knows, prime minister? Perhaps one day you'll be able to tax it." And for something closer to home, the transistor was predicted using some daft mathematical bollocks called quantum mechanics in the late 30s, but not actually built in the lab until the late 40s. Still think abstract physics research is useless? Well switch off your computer and crawl back home to your hovel, heated and lit by a wood fire, you miserable troglodyte.

Fractals

"It seems that, like fractals, which are infinitely complex at whatever scale they are examined, "

Fractals are not infinitely complex, by definition they repeat themselves. Some fractals are not complex at all, consisting of nothing more than a few lines or a small spattering of "dust". The Mandelbrot set is infinite, but it is technically not a fractal (according to Benoit).

I know that you were trying really hard to sound intelligent in your article, but you have failed miserably. Please crawl back under whatever rock you call home, and ODFO.

Where the hell is Lester? Why has he been replaced with an amateur?

research not worth it

I suppose we shouldn't be "wasting" lots of cash in Nuclear Fusion either - nothing wrong with burning the inexaustible supplies of fossil fuels... oh wait... just maybe the potential rewards to the entire planet let alone the entire human race might actually benefit in some way that can't be measured in mere $'s.

Fuck off back under your prehistoric rock you total fucktard.

Parsing the name

It's not the hadron collider that is large, it's a collider for large hadrons.

@ Stevie: CERN provides a whole lot of computer research, in addition to their physics, due to the very large amounts of data they have to shuffle around and then analyse.

@ Stevie

We don't know right now exactly how the lessons learned from the LHC experiment will benefit society at large. That's why it's called an experiment. However, you can be sure that *something* will come of it. (Spray paint for blocking mobile phone signals, maybe?)

Anyway, you'll regret the day you asked for your flying car when you're stuck in a 3-D traffic jam.

Mine's the one that fastens with Velcro, a byproduct of the Apollo missions.

money wont matter (intended pun) :O)

we might not need any money after the first time they boot this baby up for real lol, looking for 'god' particles ??? 'mini big bang' ??? WTFs a mini big bang, either its a BIG bang or it isnt innit ???

should be mighty interesting if theres anything left after the first (and only ??) run lol, this delay has allowed me to complete my very very very deep bunker in a disused coal mine in the uk, probably a waste of time, but heh, ya gotta look on the bright side and keep a stiff upper lip dont ya think ?? :O)

Costs of things for a comparison

Refurbishing MoD offices - 1.5bn pounds

Widening the M1 - 1.9bn pounds

Replacing trident - 25bn pounds

World expenditure on cosmetics - 33bn dollars per year

Naked short selling and poor banking regulation - 1000's of bn's of dollars

World arms expenditure - 1200bn dollars per year

Iraq war - 2000-3000bn dollars and rising

Poorly informed journalism - priceless

Yes the LHC takes a long time and a lot of money, but at least it is useful to society. Look around you, practically every non-living thing that is there is a result of science and engineering. A little appreciation would go a long way.

where do i start ?

bloody hell mate, have a rant why don't you? if everyone had this attitude we'd all be crawling around naked in the mud going 'ugh' and wondering what the big shiny things in the sky were. It's research into fundamental physics that made your computer possible, you know ...

@ Destroy All Monsters

Everyone knows it's not Planck length, it's Planck thickness. Look it up.

After all this debate...

...and not one mention of the "negative strangelet."

Richard Posted Tuesday 10th February 2009 14:40 GMT

Look how far you HAVE dome. You CAN have pop-tarts. And instead of eating the local fauna after running the little bastards down and killing them with your stick, you can make a living typing in a room without predators eating your ringpiece. And then BUY pop tarts to keep that ringpeice from getting too close to the seat.

And Chris, if you are going to be an arsehole, how com YOU get paid for it??? Fuckwit El Reg team.

Quenching always happens

If you knew a little about particle accelerators, you would know that magnets always need quenching when they are first turned on. And the next time they turn the LHC on there will be magnets needing quenching too. I imagine that they are spending this time checking every cable, solder joint, junction and weld on the damn thing so the failures won't be so catastrophic, but there _will_ be failures.

I apologise If I sound fanatical but I have little time for idiots. If a certain set of idiots in America hadn't cancelled that accelerator in Texas we might know more about

a) Hadrons.

b) Failure modes in large particle accelerators.

@Chris Mellor

"Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans."

- Douglas Adams.

Perhaps if you'd been an ape-man you'd have been telling other ape-men that there was no point in banging the rocks together, guys...

Ooooooh

That ruffled a few feathers.

Penny wise, pound foolish

Did you even read the CERN press release? The plan is to start in Sept/Oct and collect data for around a year and well into 2010. There will not be a long (3-4 month) winter shut down as per usual at CERN. Also, no physicist predicted an "early 2009" startup - that was never on the cards! The startup is delayed by 6 weeks compared to the previous schedule, but since CERN has actually *saved* money it can presumably justify the more expensive power bills through the winter. Are you suggesting that having built the LHC we should not now run it because it would cost £14M to repair? Ever heard of the phrase "penny wise, pound foolish?"

The LHC is not designed to look for "ever smaller bits of things," it will, after a lot of hard work, finally reveal how the known indivisible "small bits" behave at energies above the electroweak scale. There are no plans for an even larger hadron collider and even if such a machine were desirable it would and could not be built for at least 50 years. £4B, when spread over several decades and taken from all of the World's richest nations is cock all to pay to continue the process of learning new things.

This article is just uninformed trolling really.

@AC @10/2 17:08

The most fantastic comment so far. Everything is relative. And the LHC is apparently relatively cheap.

£4bn over 20 years? Bargain!

The author of the article should be squelched as a troll, methinks.

Oerrr missus.......

Am I the only person that misread the title of the article?

What we need...

...is a big register of all the anti-science arse-tards so that if/when benefits from these things arise, we can put them on a blacklist to be denied access to / use of them.

What a waste

If CERN had never existed, maybe Tim Berners-Lee would have spent his time more productively. And then of course, we'd all be spending our time more productively!

@ Robert Grant Posted 15:21 GMT

Congratulations sir - you've hit the core issue square on - questions that dare not be asked. Apparently, anyone who would question Advanced Science Research™ must be excoriated, called names and, were he physically present, undoubtedly spat upon.

Notice, all you who would rip me a new one, I'm neither praising the article nor am I condemning it - I am merely amused at the all so righteous indignation of some of the respondents in the comments section. You seem so hurt that not everyone in the world shares your reverence for Advanced Science Research™.

Personally, I like science and I support scientific research - I hope the LHC is a success and I support the furtherance of scientific research. But I also understand that there are quite literally billions of people on earth who're much more concerned about less ethereal matters such as providing food for themselves and their basic security in a violent life and that their concerns are neither irrelevant nor trivial. Further, I understand that such people are just as entitled to hold an opinion as I am and that their opinion is not necessarily invalidated by their station in life.

Reading the bitterness and vituperation in some of these comments reminds me that some of the most learned among us, while intellectually advanced, are less than fully emotionally mature and rank very low on the civility scale.

@ Everyone

Guys, do any of you REALLY know better than the high-foreheads in the land of clocks and nice chocolate?

Put yourselves in the position of those scientists hung from a rope long ago, now revered as geniuses.

Money and wealth is created, unlike matter. It may not last long but it can be put to good use by those who care. Let's drop funky stuff in tubes of dangerous gases to see what happens!

Stainless steel and vulcanised rubber are just two examples of useful things discovered after someone rummaged in the bin...

Paris because she is as qualified as any of us to argue either way.

Trolling For Fun And Profit

Aren't trolls usually restricted to the comments section? Since when are they allowed to write articles?

Nevertheless, considering that the internet is only good for porn and flame wars and seeing that el Reg doesn't provide the former (articles for eePc not withstanding) then it makes sense for them to be fanning the flames as much as possible.

Keep up the good work guys, and buy Chris a muffin.

Or something.

ERm

So like

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/09/woudhuysen_energise_1/

Wasn't that article in favor of fundamental science?

Paris - because when she contradicts herself its funny as well

Hahaha!

And don't let us see you posting your stories round here again, me lad.

Next time, Chris...

...stick to "Woz goes Strictly dancing", please. I think that's more on your level.

A bargain

An absolute bargain compared to the London Olympics!

Why no TV

Commercial TV was available in the 1930's and the early particle accelerators were proof of concept machines with the first built in 1932. X-rays were known in 1875 from cathode ray tube emissions. Einsteins 1921 Nobel prize was for the photomultiplier tube which led to scanning equipment. Without particle accelerators there would be very little not discovered except that particle physics is a better than the unemployment benefit for a group of glorified academics.

A single spin off I have heard of is a cancer treatment which took 40 years to implement from proof of concept. To pop a proton under the skin to an inch to two takes much less power than a machine with beams designed to burn through 40 km of copper. There is no practical commercial process that can not be accomplished by other cheaper and safer alternatives. For those who need particle accelerators to tell them what vintage wine they have in a bottle (a use for particle accelerators) the alternate method is to read the label.

The electron gun was developed separately and the bulk of useful scientific advances have involved the exploration of electricity which was started back in 1663 with charge collection devices. To date particle physics has produced no useful particles that last for more than a tenth of a nanosecond. If teeth decayed at the rate particles do they would useless. Even to call something that exists for such a fraction real is a bit of a joke because particles have a waveform duality meaning the science boffins may have just been watching energy changing form for the last seventy five years.